Monday, April 28, 2008

Dear Diary,

I woke up earlier than usual this morning refreshed and ready to take on the week. Despite the fact that I'm a little under the weather and despite the fact that we are down to the last 3 days of the month. Which at my work world equates to stress. The sun was (almost) shining (it was early, but I knew it was coming), birds were (soon to be) chirping, and I had a distinct feeling that things were going to be alright. What exactly? I don't know. But you know that feeling were things are just cool? Like you can take on the world if it really came down to some kind of apocalyptic scenario where it was you against the world? And the world was maybe a bunch of zombies, and your only friends are a bunch of freaky mannequins? Yeah, I feel like I could deal with that if I had to. Which is saying a whole lot for me because I hate zombies. Almost as much as I do mannequins. That's what it was. And sure enough, it is a beautiful day, and things are going well.

Anyway. At church yesterday someone spoke on the importance of record keeping, namely journals. Something that I have never been great at. I pretended to sometimes, but I always felt I was writing into the Nothing in the Never Ending Story and my words would mean about as much. And I like to write! Crazy I know! It's cathartic, etc. I even carry around a notebook to jot stuff down in from time to time, but it's never anything that cognitive. I started to write about journaling during the talk in church, but decided that was lame, and so wrote a to-do list for this week instead. That was my actual thought process. So yes, I hate writing in anything I might call a journal. Not to mention that I have a genius sister when it comes to the written word. She has stacks of filled journals. I would never match up to her, so I kinda left my journaling by the wayside. I blame you Rachel. :)But, I do blog. So I started thinking about the pros and cons of blogging versus actual journals and this is what I came up with:

Blogging pros: People actually read what I am expressing sometimes and comment, which validates the expressing of it. Instant gratification is where I am at apparently. It is also an excellent way to share my life, thoughts, feelings, joys, sorrows, inadequacies, and quirky life observations with those I love, and those I don't know. The idea of writing into this great abyss that is the world wide web is somehow liberating. A way to share myself with others in a way I may struggle to otherwise. Because I am reserved dammit (some people may negate this fact but I I'm holding to it). And instead of being consumed by the great nothing, they are instead being consumed by other people, that may relate, or empathize, or laugh, or roll their eyes. It's real. It's now. It's happening people.

Cons: Well, there is the idea that one might not express their deepest fears and hopes and aspirations and crushes and disappointments on such an open forum. But the thing is, I don't care so much. I am pretty brutally honest about how I feel here. The only thing I might hold back are the super girly things like I wrote in my first entry of my first diary that was pink with purple hearts and a little lock..... such as

"I love Bradley Harmon and he loves me except he acts like he hates me when Justin McDonald comes over".

Bradley and I shared something special. We played He-man and She-ra together. And he had the Skeletor castle. But he and Justin would sometimes throw stuffed animals at me and it would break my little heart. No matter. Brad is now married with twins and his sisters will probably read this too. No matter, our sisters used to ride their bikes around taunting us while we walked down the street in between our houses. Their bikes that they would pretend were pegasuses, pegasi? See, no holding back. I'm hardcore. Some may even call me a bad ass.

Journal pros: No one gets to read the embarrassing things I write.

Journal cons: I get bored, and nobody ever reads the embarrassing things that I write.

I was informed last night, however, that my blog does not count as a journal unless I print all my posts out and put them in a binder. So maybe I will then. Or maybe, just maybe, I will get them spiral bound because I am a rebel like that. No conformity here.

7 comments:

Blogs are better than Journals. Whenever I re read a journal entry I sound like some emo punk who winds about everything, even the good stuff on the mission comes across as whiny. And most journals, because they are written for the author have similar problems of being self absorbed mush. But Blogs are written for the masses, or at least acquaintances that you allow access. And no one wants to come across as a whiny, morose, and self absorbed to you mass readership so you write in a more humorous and self deprecating matter. This makes for a much better written product. Writing that is less cringe inducing when read years after the fact.

Well Joel, in your defense, winds is an actual word so spell checker might not find it.

But I agree. I read what I write in journals and it feels forced and superficial and self absorbed. I would never want to have to read that. And I really don't want my great great grandchildren think their Grammy Sarah was superficial nitwit. I would much rather they think of me as a hilarious if not goofy scoundrel. Or something. I dunno.

I hadn't thought about the whole "writing for yourself" thing. We had the same Sunday school lesson and the teacher told us to write with a purpose and I think to write it for someone else.

Reminds me of Elder Eyring's talk in the October 2007 conference... he related how his experiences were not given to him just for himself, but that he was to write them down for his children, etc. Basically the purpose of writing, for him, was to record evidence of the hand of God in his life each day-- be it a few lines or whatever.

I should do one of those... a gratitude book or something. What I have is sorta journal-ish but I don't write complete sentences. I just write the things that come to me or the things I learn as I study or listen in class / meetings / etc. It's pretty cool-- it's amazing how much more you learn when you have the intent to commit it to paper. I bet in similar fashion that were I to do a "gratitude book" that I'd become a lot more thankful and recognize God in my life a lot more too.

In any case, I agree that your blog basically is a journal of sorts. Forget the chump who said it had to be bound. Kids won't read books in the future, it'll all be digital. You're just ahead of the curve ;)

That's better than what I was told. We had a lesson in journals and I suggested that to us bloggers, if we printed everything out it would be a good start at a complete journal of thoughts and feelings and events. Then the next comment was that we have been taught to WRITE, as in hand write our journals and that there is nothing so profound as reading one's thoughts after they are gone when written in their own hand. Blah blah blah...just not going to happen for me. And the comment that was made to basically negate my comment is a little too "letter of the law" for my taste anyway. Good job at making me feel dumb in front of the whole R.S. though.

Oh...and no offense to you Dad, we love you...but when it comes to ever reading handwritten journals of some people, it will take a handwriting analyisis expert or team of CSI experts to decipher what it actually says. There is a good case for typing, right?

Right-o Jess. Dad has some great writing, but the prose he would compose for us on birthday or valentines cards would take days to decipher. Or awhile at least.

And it's cool that someone values the nostalgia of personal handwriting, but I really don't forsee a new article of faith emerging that states that we believe in personal records strictly written by hand and nothing else. Because guess what, all the church records are now typed. When it comes to actual record keeping, type is ideal.